December 21, 2017 (Cornwall, ON) - Students at Eamer’s Corners Public School are sending nearly 150 “care packages” containing items such as personal letters, hats, mitts, scarves, toiletries, and other small items to staff and students at a school in Nunavut.

The school’s Care Packages for Kimmirut campaign collected more than 1,500 items, enough to provide decorated care packages to the entire staff and student body at the Qaqqalik School, a K-12 facility in the northern community of Kimmirut, Nunavut. The drive, which began November 27, was run by the school’s Eagle Wings club, whose members circulated through classrooms daily to collect items and who will soon mail the packages to their peers up north.

“The campaign was a tremendous success and we are very proud to help our fellow Canadians by providing them with items they really need,” said Cindy Esdale, a teacher advisor to the Eagle Wings who coordinated the campaign.

Esdale said Eagle Wings members learned valuable lessons in character through the campaign, such as the value of generosity and empathy. Through weekly discussions with Esdale, club members also learned about Kimmirut as well as Canada’s Indigenous peoples, the residential school system and the need for reconciliation.

The campaign is supported by the Sunrise Rotary Club, which has donated $250 to help defer the cost of mailing the care packages.

A teacher from Qaqqalik will join staff and students at Eamer’s Corners on Friday for a special assembly at which Eamer’s students will read from personal letters to Qaqqalik students that they will include in the care packages. The school is hoping the letters can be the start of pen-pal relationships between Qaqqalik and Eamer’s Corners’ students.

The Eagle Wings is a student-based service club at the school comprised of 40 Grades 5 and 6 students.